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Jörðgarð Map of the Week #51 - The Dreadlands

This week we take a first look at the Dreadlands, one of the most repressive lands in the world called the Jörð. Before the Great Wars, this land was the westernmost part of the Æsir Empire and the western half of the North Duchy, ruled by Duke þráinn, a dark draug black necromancer. þráinn avoided being called into battle by convincing the now fallen high draug Martröð that he needed the duke to stay behind as a rear guard.

In the wars, the eastern half of the duchy was reduced to ruin but the western part, the New Homelands March, remained unscathed. Thus, the march and the duchy are the identical geographical entity today. One calls it the Dreadlands.

Duke þráinn dwells in his Eagle's Nest Fortress in the lower Foggy Mountains on the eastern border of the duchy and march. What is believed to be the world's most terrible dungeon, the Depths of Darkness and Hopelessness, is a part of his fortress complex. The duke has not left his fortress since the wars' end. He communicates his wishes to the Marchioness Dagrún, who runs the duchy and march on a day-to-day basis. Dagrún is a red draug black necromancer who is magically enslaved to þráinn's will. She dwells in Underhill.

Dagrún forces her will and þráinn's upon the population with her army of draugs, humans and orcs and the evil draug magi who serve her. The oppressed human population has little perspective for escxaping her claws and þráinn's. They are bordered by orc-infested mountains to the north and east, the ocean to the south and the triple princedom of Karelenland to the west. The latter, ruled by three light elven princes, is no evil land, but the Æsir of the Dreadlands fear elves and are afraid to flee there.